Tails of the Commanders: Claw of the Red Bear
by Empirialtank
Summary: War! The allies are on the run from the unstopable assualt of the Soviet Union, but disastor strikes when the Empire of the Rising Sun attacks from behind. Now its up to single commander to rally the army and counterattack.


_Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Command and Conquer games. Allrights go to their respected owners. _

_This story is the second I am writting right now, so updates might not be as common. I hope anyone who reads this enjoys it._

_Please Read and Review if you like it, I am more the open to constructive critisism._

Tails of the Commanders

Chapter 1: Of Conscripts, Convicts and Super Soldiers.

The dying winter air was cold, but it was always cold in older mother Russia; and it was not as cold as it had been before. Natasha liked the cold, she'd been born in the cold, had lived in it all her life, been saved by it once or twice and she was almost sorry to see it leave. The winter was ending, spring would be upon the land soon. The spring was a happy time for the people of Russia, there wasn't as much snow on the ground so they could get to work on the fields to prepare the harvest. In the cities it meant that the factories would get warmer and people could actually trade in the government market places again. For Natasha it meant that the enemies of the Union would soon be at their weakest.

The winter was the greatest ally to the Russian army; it gave no quarter and never left a man behind. While the enemy froze and cowered in their icy bunkers the Russians could slip across the ice like they had as children and strike at the enemy's weal points. Yet the Russian winter was a cruel mistress, it froze the enemy but it made a coordinated attack nearly impossible. Winter was a time for raiding, spring was the time for blitzkrieg. In the spring time the enemy would still be weary from the harsh winter, but at the same time would be full of hope for the future. One well timed assault could crush them in their weakness and shatter their hope.

The spring of 1989 had done just that. After a long cruel winter, the Soviets had attacked without warning and swept Europe in a few weeks. Natasha had been at the heart of the advanced, traveling with the third Apocalypse Armor division. A sniper of her quality was free to travel with any division that she chose, and she loved the Apocalypse division. She had been there when Rome fell, she had killed well over thirty men in Germany, and she had personally shot down the French flag over Paris. As always, she had won outstanding rewards for her skills as a soldier, but she was a hero of the Revolution, so what else was expected?

Not all of Europe had fallen as she set her scopes on it though. The Netherlands and old England, the birthplaces of hated capitalism, still stood proudly resisting the armies of the mother country. They wouldn't have stood for long though, if it had not been for the Empire's intervention. Natasha hated the Empire with a passion she typically reserved for the old Bitch that the allies always relied on. They had come from nowhere tearing through the Motherland with ease and a passion. The whole invasion of Europe, the glorious triumph they had waited for decades to launch, was now threatened by their unforgivable invasion of the weakest portions of her homeland. Something had to be done about this.

That something was rather difficult to do. The Empire's forces were well equipped and expertly trained. Their weapons were advanced and unpredictable; ranging from rapid fire Rail Guns to laser cannons, from flying battle mechs to amphibious assault tanks. They were all heavily armored and all of them were more than willing to die for their Emperor. Natasha was typically fine with kamikaze enemies; they were of the same mind after all, they wanted to die gloriously for their country and Natasha wanted to give them that opportunity, but these Imperial troops were a little over eager to do it. The moment Natasha had entered into the city they had swarmed her. They came from every direction, with their weapons drawn and loaded feverishly pursuing her. She killed dozens of them, but eventually she was surrounded.

There were fifteen of the bastards, six in front of her, five behind her, and two to either side. They had lined up carefully, no clear shot could take down more than one of them, and if they all started shooting none of the shots could hit their allies. Their armor was too strong to trust to her pistols, and her fifty caliber sniper rifle was far too slow of a firing rate. Natasha's mind raced to think of a way out of this mess, but her foes had no intention of giving her time to do that.

"Drop your weapon!" One of the soldiers said in weak Russian and a thick Japanese accent. Natasha turned around and back again, trying to get her back to a wall and away from an armed soldier.

"Drop your weapon!" He cried out again. "Three seconds to comply!" Natasha was never going to lower her weapon, she could hardly believe that this was it. "3…2…1…" The soldier counted till he was interrupted by gun fire.

The whole group froze when the gun erupted, it was not Natasha's and it was not one of theirs. The smoking gun belonged to a man wearing a conscript's uniform along with a gas mask; he was holding an AK47, pointed straight up in the air. The whole group turned to look at him with wide eyed wonder.

"You are looking the wrong way, comrades," The strange soldier said in a calm voice, "you should be looking up." He finished as he pointed towards the sky.

Just at that moment a half dozen windows shattered above their heads in the two building on either side of the Imperial troops as bottles of wine fell down from the side with burning rags on the end. The bottles hit the ground and shattered as the flaming rags fell into the liquids they carried causing them to explode in a blinding flash of fire. In an instant all fifteen Imperial warriors were on fire, their guns flailing wildly in the air. Several men then came out of the alley behind them. Most of them wore the standard red uniform of a conscript, but others wore bland grey uniforms, they had shaved heads with numbers tattooed on their foreheads. They quickly knocked each of the burning troops to the ground, pulled off their helmets and shot them in the head. After they were all dead, three dozen men came out of the buildings.

It was the definition of a rag tag army. No two uniforms were the same, no one had the same equipment, though AK47s were quite common, and no one had the look of authority about them, or the marks of a commissar. They started looting the bodies the moment they hit the street, pulling of the scorched Imperial armor and taking apart their weapons. Natasha soon noticed that the first men to come out were already duck taping one common part of their enemy's weapon to their own.

"What are you doing comrade?" She asked of the gas mask man who had distracted the Empire's soldiers.

"'Hey there comrade thanks for the assist out there, would've been dead without you. Is there anything I can do to help you free this town' is what people typically say when I wipe out an enemy patrol to save them. Not 'what are you doing comrade'." The man answered in a sarcastic voice.

Natasha rolled her eyes, what was it about rural troops that made them think that every small victory they won was the climax of the revolution? "Sorry, Comrade. Thank you for rescuing me, but seriously though what are you doing?"

"Imperial armor is too strong to pierce with AK47 fire, but if you attach the magnetic accelerator, the enemy uses on their guns, to the barrel then the shots go fast enough to do some real damage. We've spent the last four days collecting them. Thank you for the distraction by the way; you can almost never get Imperial troops to hold still like that for long enough to burn them."

"Who are you?" Natasha said surprised that a conscript had thought that out so thoroughly.

"I am the commander of this town's garrison till we find someone better. Who are you? And why were those Soldiers chasing you?"

"I am Natasha Volkolva,"

"No, you're the Natasha? The legendary Sniper who can kill a dozen men in one shot?" he asked in wide eyed amazement, catching the attention of all the other men.

"The one and only,"

"Prove it," He said as he started walking down the street. "Look, do you see that gun turret down Main Street?"

"Da" Natasha said as she aimed down her sniper rifle. The turret was about five hundred yards away.

"It's an auto turret; it will kill anyone who comes with a hundred yards of it. Right where the turret meets the stand there is an open portion of the armor, can you see it."

"Of course comrade."

"Now, running down the open portion of the armor are two tubes, one is red the other is blue. At the base of the red is a small box with three red wire running out of it. Do you see that?"

"I can see it plain as day Comrade, what is it?"

"It's a control mechanism that decides whether or not the turrets tracks ground targets or aerial targets. Shoot it please."

Natasha lined up her sights and judged what she saw against her own eyes to make sure she was zeroed in. She didn't how but she could always do this, even if the target was a mile away she could tell if her scope was lined up properly just by looking at the target with her own eyes. She then took a deep breath; exhaled, inhaled, and exhaled then she pulled the trigger before her next breath. The gun cried out and split the air in two as it fired its projectile at speeds that almost exceeded the laws of physics. An instant later sparks flew out of turret as the fifty caliber bullet tore five inches into the mechanism. Sure enough, as the box exploded it sent one final message to the turret and switched it over to harmless anti air mode.

"Perfect shot Comrade!" the Commander exclaimed as he saw the turret react to her shot, "Alexi, Cherdenkov take your platoons up to those building with me and Natasha, bring Vodka and motor oil. Solemski, you go back to the base, gather the rest of the men, with Peter and start working your way over to the final site. Let's go."

The group split in two, about twenty men went with the commander and Natasha up to the damaged turret, the rest of the men vanished into the night. As they approached the turret, the men split off into four groups of five men each and forced their ways into the nearby buildings. Natasha was separated from the Commander and found herself waiting in a building alongside three conscripts and one of the other men.

The conscripts had some vodka out and they quickly emptied about half of their four bottles. They then poured motor gasoline into the bottles to fill them about three quarters of the way up. Finally they took out some rags and soaked them in motor oil and forced the rages into the bottles, so that the bottom of the rag was soaked in the vodka.

"What are they making?" Natasha said to no one in particular.

"Commander calls them Molotov Cocktails." The bald man answered her. "Vodka and gasoline make for one deadly combination. Set the rag on fire and drop them on anyone you happen to hate at the time to instantly burn them to death. One guy stays up here to light and throw them while the rest of us head down stairs to await the slaughter, and finish off the stragglers."

"Pardone me for asking but just who are you? You're certainly not a conscript and with the bald head and tattoo I would say that you look like a…."

"Convict?" the man said finishing her thought.

"Yes, but that would be impossible wouldn't it."

"Not as impossible as you would think, I am a convict you see. The damn yips decided to blow up a local Gulag; Commander intercepted them and saved our lives. Gulag was destroyed in the process though, so we need a place to go, so most of us joined up with the Commander's men. We don't have any weapons but we can crack skulls pretty well."

"No, he seriously recruited convicts into the army? Most commanders would've shot you all."

"I know, but Commander is different, he doesn't make assumptions about people and will use whatever it takes to win. He needs strong backs, so he will use us, and I will follow him."

"He must be some man, but why does he wear a conscript's uniform?"

"He is a conscript, Private first class. He was drafted into the army and served here under Commander Oleg. He was out on patrol the day the empire took over, came back to find that the whole base had been destroyed, so he took it on himself to free the garrison. Back then he only had about a dozen men."

"So in the week since the empire first appeared he had amassed over forty men to follow him into battle? This man should not have been a conscript."

"Perhaps not, but I think that I like him as a conscript. Get down their coming." Natasha and the convict and two the conscripts quickly made their way down to the ground floor as a platoon of Imperial warriors made their way up the street.

There were about thirty of them total, amongst them was a man who looked like a businessman. He wore a full suit and was totally unarmed. He approached the turret and began to examine it. While the soldiers gathered around and spoke to each other in foreign tongues.

"That man is an engineer." The convict said, "Commander has been looking for one of them, so don't kill him."

They silently watched the group for a few seconds, then out of nowhere, the commander walked into the middle of the enemy platoon. He was unarmed and striding through the group like their commanding officer. All of the Japanese warriors turned to watch him as he walked up to the engineer. He looked over his shoulder, and then down at the man himself. Then he looked back at the machine and poke around in it a little bit.

After awhile he said, "Looks like a high velocity round impacted the mechanism here cause the turret to shift into air defense mode."

"Yes that is exactly what I think happened…" the confused engineer answered him in broke Russian.

"Ah so you do speak Russian, that is good, yes?"

"Yes I guess it is, but pardon, who exactly are you?"

"You have any idea how hard it is to find enemy engineer who speaks Russian, I've killed like nine of you guys looking for one. Well at any rate, kill 'em all but the man in the suit boys." No sooner had he said then the vodka bottles hit the street. Most of the enemy troops went down in a blaze of flaming glory, the rest were quickly knocked to the ground and killed as the men came tearing out of the building to kill off the platoon. The whole attack only lasted a few seconds and few shots were fired.

The engineer now found himself surrounded, not by the frightening soldiers of his own army, but by the frightening soldiers of the enemy army. As dozens of corpses continued to burn the number of red and grey uniforms around him gradually increased. The commander soon swept him up and ushered him away from the scene of his dying comrades over to the side of the street. Natasha followed him. The commander didn't question him though; he simply put him in the charge of two dangerous looking convicts and returned to the group.

"Damn, Lenin must be with me tonight. I haven't had this good luck in weeks. I have a world class sniper with me, a captured engineer, and five more hours till the convoy arrives."

"Convoy?" Natasha asked,

"The enemy is bringing a convoy of troops through the town tonight, my original plan was to try and drop a building on them and chuck some cocktails are the survivors, but now we may be able to do a bit more against them."

"What's your plan?"

"Then enemy has a sizeable base to the south of here, guarded by a mass of turrets and a sizeable garrison. That where the rest of them men are imprisoned along with the bases armaments. It's also where they relay the controls to all the auto turrets. If we can crack that base we will have control of the town and the firepower needed to silence that convoy in one quick thrust."

"How do you plan on taking down an entire enemy base?"

"Why with your help of course."

Skip

About half an hour later the met up with the rest of the troops, there were fifty five of them in all. Thirty conscripts, who were all now armed with modified AK47s and plenty of Molotov Cocktails, along with twenty convicts who were still largely unarmed, save with a wide array of pistol, led piped and land minds. They also had a pair of trucks, a few professional drivers, an engineer, the commander, and one legendary sniper. The plan was simple, but effective.

Then enemy concentrated most of their troops in a barracks complex and at a vehicle factory. There were few patrols in the court yard, and fewer places for a man to take cover. The enemy relied on their turrets to provide most of the defense. So they would logically be the first to go down. Across from the base, there were several abandoned buildings that were lightly patrolled and easy enough to clear out. After clearing them out, the conscripts had taken up their positions and waited for orders. On top of one to the buildings was a water tower that made for the perfect sniping post. There, Natasha had taken up position along with the Commander looking over the battlefield.

The first targets were the turrets. Five large auto turrets that could tear all of their troops to pieces in a few seconds, but those turrets would be useless once switched over to air defense mode. All told, Natasha had about five seconds from her first shot to take down the last turret; otherwise any surviving turrets would avenge their fallen brethren.

"Can you do it?" The Commander asked.

"You have to ask?" Natasha responded.

The commander shrugged. "Fire when you're ready."

Natasha steadied herself and repeated the process of calming herself down and ensuring that she could fire with absolute accuracy at each of the targets. She grabbed the bolt with the index finger and thumb and used her middle finger to ready the trigger. Speed was just as key here as accuracy, so she took her time and made sure everything was perfect. She held her breath and pulled the trigger. One shot fired, one turret went down, the second leapt from her gun and dropped another, then a third, then a fourth, and finally the fifth sounded before a single soldier in the enemy camp knew the cause of the first. Three and a half seconds had passed. The commander whistled as he pulled a large gun out of his holster and aimed at the enemy command center. He pulled the trigger and launched a flare at his target.

"You use a flare gun to signal an attack?" Natasha asked as the fire ball rushed over her head.

"No I whistle to signal an attack, I use a flare gun to set the enemy's communication system on fire."

Sure enough the flare had landed on the enemy command center where a large satellite dish proudly stood connecting the command center to the rest of the enemy army. Seconds later the alert sounded politely informing the entire base to their presence about ten seconds after it could have done them any good.

Soldiers poured out of the barracks complex into a hail of modified AK47 fire. Their armor did them little good in face of the onslaught, as soldier after soldier fell to their deaths. Natasha did her fair share as well, tracking down the few enemies who found some decent cover and picking them off one at a time. A group of soldier realized the futility of their situation and rushed towards the factory where the enemy kept their Tsunami Tanks. Natasha dropped about half of them before they got there, but even the survivors didn't do any good as the commander dropped another flare right on the entrance to the factory setting it on fire and keeping them from entering.

After a few minutes, soldiers stopped running out of the base and instead began to fall back to their barracks. The soldiers in the buildings continued to fire at them as they made their escape, taking them down one at a time. The commander then raised his flare gun and shot one final flare up into the sky. At that moment the two trucks made their way out of the streets and rammed down the enemy gates. One truck drove straight towards the enemy barracks the other headed towards the enemy factory. At the same time, ten convicts jumped out of the back of each truck and the drivers jumped out of the driver's seat. The continued on their course and soon crashed into each of the enemy buildings. In the back of the trucks, packs of unstable nitroglycerin crashed about and exploded, triggering the explosives inside of the land mines that surrounded them. The resulting explosions could be seen from all around the city, and there was little left of either building when the damage had been done.

The conscripts and the commander soon made their way down to join the convicts in the courtyard. The convicts had already raided the old ammo stores that the enemy had taken over. As the commander approached one of the convicts, who was holding two AK47s and two long belts of ammo called out to him.

"Good news commander, the enemy has been keeping out guns clean for us; we now have plenty of ammunition!"

"Did they preserve our flak cannons?"

"Yes commander they're all here!"

"Good then drop those useless guns and pick up a flak cannon! That goes for everyone who doesn't have a gun, go and arm yourselves with a flak cannon, if you can't carry one then convince one of the conscripts who could to switch with you!"

He then turned to the conscripts, "Alexi, Solemski, take your men down to the prisons that the empire set up and free the commissars and their men. Get them back up here and arm them. Cherdenkov, cannibalize these fallen weapons. Where the Stalin is Alexander?"

"Right here boss." The combat engineer said as he stepped out from the crowd with the captured Japanese engineer trying to hide behind him.

"You and Peter are with me."

"What are we doing boss?" Peter, the forth platoon leader asked.

"We are going to go have a word with the enemy commander."

"A violent word?" Peter asked hopefully.

"I don't know any others,"

Skip

The enemy commander was in a fury. How could his Samurai have been so effortlessly defeated by those filthy peasants? They had been trained for years, they had taken the port with little to no effort at all. They had swept through forces ten times the size of the one in his court yard, yet now they were all dead. They were even denied an honorable death, he had ordered them back to the barracks to make a plan and then those trucks came out of nowhere to blow them to smithereens. Now the enemy had forced their way into his headquarters and were working their way up to his command center, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. He couldn't even call for help, his communications had been knocked out and his engineers were worthless. He was in such a rage he didn't even notice the door open.

He did hear the first gunshot, he even turned around in time to see the four Russian conscripts unleash hell on the men behind him. He also heard four men hit the ground behind him. The enemy commander entered the room behind his men, an AK47 hanging casually over his shoulder. Or at least, the man assumed to be the enemy commander. Truth be told he looked just like all the other men, save that he was wearing a gas mask. But he moved with authority and the other men looked to him for approval. He nodded to them and they spread out over the rest of the room. Behind him a young girl with a very long gun entered.

The Imperial Commander saw his chance and took it. Drawing his energy charged sword he rushed to woman behind the commander. He thought she would be weak, he thought he could use her as a hostage to escape and warn the convoy. He was wrong. She swung her gun like a quarter staff, misdirecting his sword and using his own force to bring the butt of the rifle up into square contact with his gut. He collapsed on the rifle and she used it to turn him to the side and drop him to the ground. She then stepped on his had till he let go of the sword, and brought the rifle butt down one last time on his head to knock him out.

"You know," The commander said as she finished, "I would've liked to talk with that man, but I am sure that the commissars will have a much better conversation with him. Anyone else want to try and charge this good woman here?" The engineers couldn't speak Russian but they caught the gist of what he had said and shook their heads for no.

"Alright, alright commander, that's enough. You don't have to scare these poor men out of their wits, I need them thinking straight after all." Alexander the engineer said as he entered the room. Alongside him was the Japanese engineer. Alexander's presence seemed to calm the soldiers down, and the sight of one of their own made the engineers very happy.

"Brother! You survived amongst the barbarians." They said to him in Japanese.

"Better then that brothers, I have been freed."

"Freed? What do you mean brother?"

"I have been freed from the samurai and the industrialists; it's all thanks to this man. He showed me that the Soviets are not enemies of the Emperor but only of the Samurai and industrialists who manipulate him and the people of Japan for their own ends. He has promised me to help free us all from them, to make us as one people, all living under the glorious reign of the Emperor! The Soviets are not are enemies they are our friends they will even help us repair the communications array."

The engineers had no idea what their brother was talking about, but it sounded nice. It was also really good to know that the Soviets soldiers were not there to kill them but to help them. In a few minutes, they were all merrily working away at restoring communication with the incoming convoy. Meanwhile Alexander hacked their computer systems and shut down the auto turrets.

"There you go," He finally said, "The turrets are off line, and when they are switched on they will fire at anything that moves, friend or foe. Once the convoy crossed this bridge we can switch on these four turrets to fire on them."

"Which will then force them down these streets into the waiting trap of our flak troopers and conscripts." The commander said, finishing the engineer's thought. "You're certain that only these turrets will activate, and not the ones behind out men right?"

"If you're worried about it, I can rig those turrets to explode if their activated."

"That will work. Peter, inform the commissars of our plan and get their approval. Afterwards, get Alexi and take your men down to the ambush site. Solemski and Cherdenkov will hide their platoons near the bridge to ensure the no one comes back that way. I'll tell them that."

"I will take up position on this billboard to pick off any stragglers." Natasha said as the commander nodded at the idea, "After all of this, I want to have a word with you commander."

"Ooooh," Peter said in as childish a voice as the six foot four bear of a man could muster, "Commander is in trouble with the sniper."

"Shut up Peter, and get to work already."

Skip

The commissar was delighted with the plan. He was even more delighted that as ranking officer he could take credit for it without doing any work to prepare it. On the whole he was also very impressed with the commander, and was surprised that such a man had been hiding under his very nose this whole time. Natasha pressed him for details about the commanders past, but the commissar knew very little about him.

"He was a good friend of Commander Oleg, the man who was in charge of defending the port. Oleg used to give a lot of freedom about the base, which is why the men got into the habit of calling a first class private, 'commander.'"

"What happened to Commander Oleg?" Natasha asked she had heard the convicts talking about him before.

"After the fleet station here was destroyed by an enemy convert operation, Oleg was ordered to Leningrad to be tried for incompetence and possibly treason as well. Oleg ordered the commander out on patrol so that he wouldn't see him leave. The moment he left, the enemy attacked again and took over the town. Who would have thought that his last order would save us?"

"He sounds like he was a fairly competent leader."

"He didn't deserve to be blamed for this, they hit us on the new year's celebration. None of the troops were ready for battle."

"New years was months ago."

"The town still runs on the old calendar, the year starts with spring and ends in winter."

"How could the enemy had known that?"

"I don't know, but they did, and it cost the Union a good leader. But we got the commander out of it so I guess is plays out in the end."

"Convoy is inbound in ten minutes!" a scout shouted out from the command center.

"That's our cue! Good luck Natasha, were all counting on you."

"I know commissar. See you soon."

Skip

The convoy entered the town without any problems. They received the all clear signal from the tower and made their way past the base and into the town. The base seemed perfectly normal, the armored warriors made their way lazily about the courtyard like any other day. Their armor looked pretty badly beaten, but that sort of thing could be expected in a back water town like this. Nothing was amiss in the rest of the town. It was well past curfew by the point so all the buildings were locked up safe and sound. The bridge was in perfect order and the soldiers guarding it saluted them as they drove past. All hell broke loose on the other side though.

First all the turrets start firing at once, and soldiers were dismayed to discover that they were the targets of the automated hail of deadly fire. Two transports exploded in seconds as the rail guns ripped them to pieces. Several transports panicked and hit the gas and rushed the buildings to the south trying to get out of range of their own weapons. That was stupid, and the transports soon found out why as they were introduced to the amount of damage the artillery version of a shotgun shell could to a transport. The soldiers hidden in the buildings fired dozens of flak rounds at them, as the shells came with inches of their targets the exploded and launched dozens of large steal pellets into the air and into the sides of the transports. Black clouds of death erupted all around transports as one after another fell to the ground utterly destroyed. As a few survivors made their way out of the flaming wrecks they were introduced to a whole new danger, as AK47 fire erupted from the barricades in front of them.

Two transports tried to rush back over the bridge with just as little success as the other transports had had. A few transports had a novel idea and decided to bail out. The transports circled up and let out their men who could then use the burning wrecks of their own vehicles as cover from the auto turrets. They were safe, for all of five seconds. Then the sniper fire came in as Natasha zeroed in from the safety of her billboard. One by one, she killed each of the last survivors till there was only one left.

That one man made his piece with the gods and awaited his death, it never came. In fact the turrets stopped firing and seemed to shut down, the Sniper fire stopped as well. For a moment he thought it was a miracle, right up till the moment that the conscripts rounded the corner. There was dozens of them, they all were heavily armed, accept for one in the center who was wearing a gas mask. They surrounded him and the gas mask soldier stepped forward and said something to him in their strange tongue. After a second he turned and said something to the men behind him and then an Imperial engineer stepped forward.

"The commander wants to know where this convoy was head, Samurai-sama."

"You traitorous whelp, I ought to kill you here."

"Please don't be violent Samurai-sama, or they will react to you."

"And what kill me? Unlike cowards such as yourself, Samurai are not afraid to die!"

"No Samurai-sama, they won't kill you."

"Silence!" The Samurai yelled as he charged the engineer swinging his rifle knock him down. The commander intercepted him though, he caught the rifle and helped it swing so that the samurai was knocked off balance, he then grabbed the Samurai's hand and punched him in the elbow, bending his arm in ways it ought not bend.

The warrior fell to the ground writhing in pain. The commander stood over him watching his pain he then spoke again in his strange language. The engineer translated.

"He says that dying for one's country is easy, but living for it can be very hard. Tell him where the convoy was headed or he will break your other arm in a far worse way."

The warrior looked at the commander, but it was impossible to read his face through his mask. The warrior had to bet on how much pain this man's conscience would allow him to inflict on another living being. The samurai, guessed that it was quite a lot so he broke.

Skip

Natasha found the commander speaking with the Commissar by the bridge. The Commissar was congratulating the commander and promising to see him promoted to captain, at the very least, and that he could go higher than that if he kept this up.

"They only thing I don't understand about all of this is how did you knock out their base defenses, their power plants were to heavily guarded to be sabotaged, how did you do it?"

"For that you have, Natasha here to thank." The commander said as she approached them, "Without her amazing sniping skills I could not have done it."

"Well we certainly are lucky that she showed up when she did, or else this town would still be under the control. Miss. Natasha, you are truly a great hero to the revolution and we owe you are lives."

"Thank you commissar." Natasha said to the old man.

"You know speaking of all this, why did you come to this town. The fleet was sunk, the town no strategic value, I was only fighting because we had no other options, why did you come here?" The commander asked.

"Actually I wanted to talk to you about that, I am actually on my way to Leningrad. The city is besieged and the empire has reduced our defenses down to the island fortress. I came the long way hoping to slip through the blockade and to see if I could rally the resistance to join me at the city. With your permission commissar, I would like to take the commander and his men with me to Leningrad, with their skill and his obvious talent they could be a great help in reversing the battle and freeing the city."

"That sounds like a great idea to me." The commissar agreed, "The commander here has been hiding in the shadow of great men for too long, at Leningrad he can truly start to shine, and while you all do that I will rally the local militia here to start pushing these foreign invaders back. What do you think commander, are you ready to make your way to Leningrad and greatness?"

"Good Lenin No!" The commander exclaimed.

"What?!" The commissar and Natasha exclaimed in unison.

"There is no way in all of the Glorious People's Paradise of next Tuesday, that I am going to go Leningrad, much less lead my men into the death trap!"

"You don't think the fortress can hold off their amphibious assaults?"

"The assaults aren't the problem. First off, the city is blockaded; we will die long before we even reach the city. You may be a world class sniper and covert specialist, but my men aren't, they will be caught and kill in seconds. Second, even if we get into the city, the fortress, the only thing that could even the odds against their overwhelming numbers, is on an island, and we have no transports. Only one out every three men I have can swim and they control the canals. We'll be torpedoed to death half way there. But most importantly, the fortress itself is a death trap; it has no long range defenses, as soon as the enemy's heavy battleships get within firing range everyone in that fortress is doomed!"

"What about air strikes? The fort may not have any long range guns but we may have some air power we can use to finish them off."

"The cities blockaded remember, only Kirov airships could do any real damage those damn battleships and they will be shot down long before reach their targets."

"What about the desolators experts? They could come down on the battleships from high altitude where the empire's air defenses can't touch them."

"A desolator air strike won't damage them."

"They could replace their radiation bombs with heavy explosives."

"Wouldn't have enough firepower to do any real damage."

"Actually that wouldn't matter if they hit the right spot." Alexander the engineer interrupted.

"What?" The commander asked as he turned around to see the old man quietly eavesdropping on their conversation.

"The enemy base has detailed diagrams on the enemy's battleships, a precise hit on their exhaust port should get all the way down to the power core and either sink the ship or shut down its power."

"How could they possibly hit such a small target," The commander said, no longer so sure on his objections.

"They would have to be guided in, but you could use an inferred beam to paint the target, I could easily attach one to Natasha's gun if you wanted."

The commander was silent after this, it looked like his brain had frozen up trying to process this. Natasha looked at him strangly, and the commissar coughed trying to get his attention. The commander held up a finger to the commissar to restore the silence. After a solid minute like this he started to walk off.

"Alexi, Solemski, gather every single, extra gun you can find and start arming up the men. I want everyone to carry enough ammo for two men to use for the next three months. Cherdenkov, rally the people, start a food drive. Get me enough provisions to feed our men for a month. Peter, get your men equipped and scout out a path through the forest to the east. I want you men out their yesterday, take Natasha with you. Follow any Imperial patrols back to their base and then kill them if possible. Boys we are going to Leningrad with blood and iron."

End Chapter 1.


End file.
